September 2021
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A/N: This is a series of three-sentence ficlets that I wrote daily for September 2021, in an attempt to exercise my writing muscles and to play around a little with characterisation. Heads up for shifting tenses, grief/death discussions, personal headcanons, and rambling sentence structure as I squash everything into three sentences. Due to the three-sentence limitation, the ficlets are rather abrupt/disjointed, but unfortunately there's little I can do about that.
As usual, this is set predominantly in the musical!verse, with some references taken from the book.
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Prompt 1: on a whim
Toad and Mole were so alike in some ways that Rat was sure that this impulsive desire – this stubborn, reckless insistence of entering the Wild Wood – would be nothing more than a whim, to be quickly dissolved upon the slightest pressure.
Naturally this would be the one time Mole would differ from Toad.
It didn't occur to Rat until later, while he was frantically cobbling together a ragtag disguise to brave the Wild Wood in (alone) that, out of the two of them, he had been the first to balk on his hasty words.
Prompt 2: stardust
"...and that line of stars is known as Orion's Belt," Ratty says, sitting on the flat roof of Toad Hall and pointing up at the constellation.
Toad squints through the telescope 'borrowed' from his father (his father is well aware of the purloined item and of the late hour, and one of the staff animals lingers subtly by the doorway in case of incident), swivelling the telescope for several futile seconds before dismissing the attempt with a, "How do you know so much about the stars anyway?"
"My dad taught me," Ratty replies – what he does not add is how his father had also spoken of the use of stars in navigating through the ocean, and how uneasy the implication that he would one day leave the Riverbank left him.
Prompt 3: you make me smile
It is not fair, Badger is well aware, to judge his friends' sons by the merits of their fathers, but he cannot help it; there is too much of the fathers in the sons, too many memories and too many ghosts and too much lost time in the grieving.
He sees the hopping gait of Toad Junior (so distinctive of Toad in his younger years) and Rat's hat pulled low over Ratty's eyes, hears the talk of the antics of toad and a water rat, and he smiles as, for a rare moment, their fathers still live.
Maybe one day he will smile for who they are now, not for who he wishes they were.
Prompt 4: incantations
"If you must go into the Wild Wood," Rat Senior once told his son, in a tone that implied such incidences should be far and few between, "then there's passwords and sayings and tricks you practice; all simple enough when you know them, but they've got to be known if you're small, else you'll find yourself in trouble."
It is only a shame, Rat thinks now, in the dim light of the Wild Wood, that he remembers so little of that talk, and the only advice that had really stuck with him all these years was the age-old, 'be scarier than the other side' adage.
Still, he rather suspected his father had not envisioned a monster costume built up of old fishing tackle and oars at the time.
Prompt 5: you are there
Portia had always been a common sight along the Riverbank, even after (or perhaps because of) her father's passing. She was part and parcel of the background noise of the bank, oft running fearlessly through the reeds or digging for food, and the locals kept a helpful eye on the otter pup while the mother trailed fretfully behind.
Portia had always been a common sight along the Riverbank, until one winter she isn't.
Prompt 6: waiting for life
"You must promise me," Rat Senior says as his season draws nigh, "not to hide away and wait for life to come find you when I'm gone."
"Of course," Badger lies, and his friend, oh his friend, knows him too well to buy the lie, but loves him too much to mar their fading time with bickering.
And anyway, Badger thinks, how can he think of life when all this year has bought is death?
Prompt 7: it isn't much
Rat was so accustomed to Toad's grand hall that he excused his riverside home on instinct as he ushered his unexpected guest inside.
"It isn't much?" Mole echoed incredulously. He darted across the room, examining the window views, the sandbags stacked neatly in preparation for the spring floods, the pot of sealer Rat hadn't tidied away since readying his boat that morning, all with that same wide-eyed curiosity afforded the River, and said, "But Ratty, it's wonderful!"
Prompt 8: a first impression
In the aftermath of their misadventure into the Wild Wood, Mole thinks on their encounter with Badger and asks (quite astutely, he thinks) if Badger is something of a father figure to Ratty.
"What, no," Ratty splutters, "we've barely talked in recent times; I'm not sure if he even considers me a friend – it was my father who he was close with, and after my father passed– look, I doubt he thinks of me as anything more than his friend's pup, okay?"
Mole decides against asking about maternal figures and a certain otter.
Prompt 9: talking to myself
"I don't mean to judge," Mole said, affording Ratty a sidelong glance as they walked, "but perhaps you might pause that ditty while we're visiting Toad?"
Rat, who hadn't even noticed he'd been humming until then, asked, "What ditty?"
"I believe it went something along the lines of 'Motor car Toad, he got stuck, going off the road, what bad luck.'"
Prompt 10: already forgotten
"Toad, do you remember last winter when–"
"When I escaped from the most heavily-guarded prison in all of England and single-handedly reclaimed Toad Hall, why, yes I do, Ratty."
Rat hesitated, and then leant back towards Mole with an, "Okay, I'm tapping out of this conversation for all of our sakes; your turn."
Prompt 11: wake me up
The ruckus that woke Badger up was not the measured knocking of a neighbour, nor the familiar arrival of his riverbank friends, nor even the knock-and-run din of the Wild Wooders; the ruckus that woke Badger was one of frantic urgency.
He opened his door, expecting, dreading, to see the animal who needed his help so late at night, and was shocked to see the weasel who he'd last encountered kicking out of Toad Hall.
"It's Lesser," Chief said; "He's sick."
Prompt 12: if it don't work out
"You know, it took some time for me to trust your father and Toad's," Badger tells Ratty in a moment when it's just the two of them, "and I even tried to push them away when I first realised that was changing."
It has been a long day for Ratty, fraught with arguments and forays into the Wild Wood, but even drowsy and underground he jolts awake at the unexpected admission with a "Why?"
"No one ever told me new friendships could be as intimidating as anything else novel," Badger replies, and the look he gives Ratty implies his attempts to downplay his earlier quarrel with Mole have failed, "and that once you begin to care, you also care if it doesn't work out."
Prompt 13: the little things
It is, to Rat's surprise, the little things in sharing a home with another animal that catches him most by surprise.
It is the scent of unfamiliar meals, the kitchen surfaces laden with a strange spread of utensils and ingredients; it's the coat rack now with only one hook spare; it's the vinyls stacked by the record player, the step stool left in odd places, and the second set of house keys in the dish.
Small, tiny things of one life making room for another.
Prompt 14: if I knew then
"If I knew then what had passed between you and Toad," Mole tells Ratty, "I wouldn't have been so insistent on meeting him."
"Your curiosity would have gotten the better of you eventually," Rat amends with half a smile.
"Maybe, but next time at least try telling me first."
Prompt 15: running out of hope
Sometimes Mrs Otter felt that Mole was right in his way – thank goodness she did have other children.
Not because they were a replacement, but because they meant life had to go on; there were still meals to prepare, and bedtime stories to tell, and bruises to kiss better. At the end of the day, there was no time left to nurse that dwindling spark of hope for her missing daughter.
Prompt 16: I wish
"I just wish," Mrs Otter laments, "that even after – especially after – everything she's been through, she would learn to stay in sight."
"I seem to recall another otter mother saying the same thing about her tearaway daughter some years back," Badger says with a smile.
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Mrs Otter mutters.
Prompt 17: overdressed
For Toad, the clothes of a hobby are as vital (and sometimes, just as expensive) as the hobby itself. But even to animals accustomed to his quirks, there is something too oft uncanny about it.
It is too Wide World, too human, for it to sit easy among the Riverbank.
Prompt 18: left behind
He doesn't feel left behind, of course he doesn't; the great Mr Toad never has need to be jealous of anyone. Not even if his best friend is suddenly gallivanting off around the Riverbank with a new animal with not even a backward glance his way.
So no, Toad is sure as he writes out another invitation, he doesn't feel left out.
Prompt 19: keep your head low
"When working up at Toad Hall," Rabbit's father told him years ago, "keep out of the toads' dramas; it may seem temping to get involved, but you'll quickly regret it."
"Why, will I lose my job?" Rabbit had asked, with wide eyes.
"No, it's just fucking exhausting."
Prompt 20: all that matters
In the hours before the fight, Mrs Otter pulls Badger aside.
"You need to know," she says, "that if it ever comes to the choice to save my daughter or save Toad Hall, I'd let the place burn in an instant. I'd thought I'd lost her once; I'm not losing her again."
Prompt 21: ghosts
Most of Ratty's home is well-lit and bright – an easy consequence of living on the Riverbank – but the corridor running along the heart of it is darker than most, the only natural daylight found through the window at the far end.
At the other end lies a wall where the paint has faded around a large rectangular shape; when asked, Ratty tells Mole of a mirror that had once hung there, although his reasons for its absence are muddled, rambling, lost.
It is only when Mole finds a picture of the late Rat Senior and he mistakes it (if only for a moment) to be Ratty that he starts to understand why.
Prompt 22: not one poem
"I suppose it was only a matter of time until Toad turned his attention to poetry," Mole says, passing the paper over to Ratty, "given your own interest."
"I'd be flattered by the imitation," Rat says as he reads it, "if only he didn't attempt to rhyme 'orange' with 'challenge' – but," he adds, doing his best to look on the bright side, "at least this newest fad won't last long; knowing him, just the one poem should bore him onto the next craze."
Mole hesitates with a thick frog-green envelope in paw that definitely holds more than just the one poem, and wonders how to break the news to him.
Prompt 23: into the woods
As he stands on the threshold of the Wild Wood, boat oars in paws and feeling a sickening mixture of overreacting and underpreparedness, it dawns on Rat that he can't remember the last time he entered it alone. There has always been his father's paw guiding him or Toad goading him, a friendly face either way to banish away the wood's whispers.
Of course, his mind mutters mutinously, you wouldn't be alone if you'd just gone with Mole in the first place.
Prompt 24: nobody sees a thing
"What do you mean," the judge asked icily, "you've lost Toad?"
"Well, he's only a toad," one of the police mumbled, "and they're pretty small. We need nets, really, instead of truncheons."
Prompt 25: come back to me
It was never a given that a pup would leave home — some, such as Ratty or Toad, ended up filling the space their parents left — but if Mrs Otter had had to guess which of her brood would want to venture further shores, her headstrong eldest would have been her first choice; still, it didn't mean she had to like it.
"You come back to visit me sometime, you hear?" she ordered, wrapping a scarf tightly around her daughter's neck despite the mild weather and Portia's eye-rolling.
Portia had grown in the intervening years since her near miss with the Wild Wooders; she was taller, stronger, so alike her father now that it should have set Mrs Otter's nerves at ease — but then again, if her mate had proved anything, it was that even full grown otters were not impervious to disaster.
Prompt 26: we are not alone
"I don't want to alarm you," Rat says as he returns from the pantry of Mole End, "but I don't think we're alone."
Mole laughs, questioningly echoes, "Alone?" and says, "But of course we're not alone; there's all manner of creatures down here — rabbits, mice, slow worms, adders..." he trails off as he, belatedly, takes stock of the pallor of his Riverbank friend and realises that this is perhaps not the reassurance Ratty was looking for. "Sound travels strangely through the tunnels," he hastily adds, "so it'll probably just be some animal in a nearby burrow — I wouldn't worry about it if I were you."
Prompt 27: living, dead, and undecided
Badger can understand — even if he doesn't like it — the animals who have taken to calling Toad Junior just Toad; after all, Toad (Senior) is dead and gone and this kind of titular inheritance is simply the way of the world.
It's not something he's ever taken the time to ponder about himself — names, that is; he is alive and healthy (but so had his friends been) and thus it would be a long time (in theory) before the moniker of Badger was passed on to another beast.
And it's not something he wishes to consider at all for his remaining friend, but as the winter and the sickness worsens, he sees the falter, hears the hesitation as animals talk of the son, of Ratty, and wonder as if it's already decided: When will he become Rat?
Prompt 28: let me fly
In the days following the near-fateful encounter with the Seafaring Rat, Ratty watches the migrating geese with a gentle sort of malaise.
"It was all foolishness, of course," he says when Mole notes his mood; "an uncanny sort of wanderlust that's all but faded now, but still..."
But still, on such days his poetry takes on a meandering, unmoored air, lingering on wings and skies and distant, unseen shores.
Prompt 29: one normal night
"All I'm saying," the gardener says, "is that when you told me you had a job for me down in the dungeons this evening, this ain't what I imagined." He finished applying the last of the chicken wire to the lower half of the cell bars, and gave an approving nod. "Still, I reckon that'll keep your toad in."
Prompt 30: you'll never know
Two policeman crouched over an amphibian chilling in the pond.
"Do you think it's the right toad?" the first one asked.
"Mate, I'm not even sure it's not a frog," the second replied, and he scooped it up, "but whoever's going to notice otherwise?"